We are to understand, then, from the "Mackadamia" thread in Off Topic that we have all wasted our time greeting a new arrival on ATUII whom we were deceived into thinking was an old acquaintance, a valued contributor to another site.

It transpires that the new ATU poster identifying himself as "Harmonica Albert" was actually Old Mack posting under that pseudonym in order, presumably, to generate a degree of interest in "Mackadamia"'s rehashing of his tired old anti-"Ultraliberal" invective.

It is no defence to say that the real HA expressed such views on the original ER thread because context is everything in these matters- and we were given no context at all in the deceptive ATU post.

I liked HA. It does him a disservice to steal his identity in this underhand manner. Even if the material posted WAS an accurate sample of his views, the fictitious HA has, by definition, no right of reply as the "Mackadamia" thread develops.

And it's unfriendly to other ATU posters, to say the least, to resort to such deceptive tactics.

It transpires that the new ATU poster identifying himself as "Harmonica Albert" was actually Old Mack posting under that pseudonym in order, presumably, to generate a degree of interest in "Mackadamia"'s rehashing of his tired old anti-"Ultraliberal" invective.

Well, this is certainly disappointing. Here I thought we had gotten, in the span of one week, 2 new posters (Tiny you are the other one) with evident intelligence, and was looking forward to reading their posts. WTF!! Mack you should be ashamed of yourself!